Hey I can understand your position. I think the Perfect Wave combo will be perfect for my needs the next decade or so and will be a great complement to the Decware system I have.

Music Direct currently has a very good deal, the combo comes with two of the best PS Audio cables and their top of the line HDMI cable (for i2s connection between transport and DAC). This is very tempting as those would suit my needs admirably. I think I can swing the purchase and might do so. I like the way the DAC can be non-sampling or overs-sampling, that you can choose digital filters, and that you can invert phase with the touch of a screen---I have a number of Japanese cds that sound better to me with polarity reversed. Seems like a very satisfying product.

Wow. Today everything sounds so rich and full and great that I wonder how it could sound better. But I know that it could.

The most recent PS Audio xStream cable I picked up, a Premier SC, has about 300 hours on it now and man I can't believe how good these cables are. Having one on the CSP2 and the Torii Mk III has just opened up a new vista in clarity and deptth. When broken in it's as if they suddenly take off. The Plus on the ZDAC-1 (which I am now using for Redbook in most cases, and Blu-Ray) is almost as good. Love these cables.

Listening to this one right now and it's just brutally hard swinging and stimulating. The system is just dishing it out. That Baney Kessell model Gibson guitar is just "testifyin'"!

Well, I took the plunge. I ordered the PS Audio Perfect Wave Transport and DAC combo.

This HAS to be my last audio purchase for a long time! And it likely will be. I'm excited. With the I2S connection, the built in Digital Lens, the RAM buffering, the choices of over-sampling or non-over-sampling, the choice of five different digital filters, the fact that it should serve as an excellent preamp. . . I'm excited. I'll be able to remove from my system the ZDAC-1, the CSP2, my Sony SCD-XA5400ES, and the Peachtree Audio Decco that I was using as a second DAC. I can really beef up my bedroom system, or I could have a nice littel sale. This of course if I decide to keep the "combo" after the thirty day trial, but I have a feeling I will.

It should arrive sometime tomorrow. I'll of course list some impressions here over the weekend.

I know that the Torii Mk III and the ERRs are up to the task of showing me just how good this digital combo can be!

Well, if the PerfectWave is great, I'll either keep the Sony in the system for uses with SACD discs, or put it in the bedroom as the main audio source there.

I already found, a year after buying the ZDAC-1 and using it for my DVD and Blu-Ray and DVR audio that for a lot of Redbook titles I liked the ZDAC-1 being fed by the Sony to be a bit better sound than the Sony alone. Still, the Sony excelled on acoustic recorded music such as jazz and classical. Just had a bit more of a sweetness. For the 1300 dollars I spent on it, the Sony is a real bargain, it didn't cost what this PS Audio combo does!

Sorry to hear that. Frustrating. In all my years of ordering, I have only had one problem with FedEx, and it was so bizarre, that it was clearly an outlier. Driver simply delivered a new MacBook Pro [first of the Intel chip series] to a wrong address not far from my office, and when we finally tracked down where it went, the recipient tried to keep it claiming "finders keepers"! By the time I tracked it down, (less than 4 hours later) the a$$hole had already opened it up and set it up as his own machine. FedEx acknowledged the mistake, and Apple took it back and gave me a new one. Very weird. Other than that, in years of ordering, I have never had a FedEx problem. OTOH, don't get me started on UPS.

I've never had a problem with FedEx before either, and yeah, don't get me started on UPS.

For about three years I had a UPS driver that half the time would make my wife or I sign in person for things that the shipper nor I had requested to sign for. . .I had to miss work and go home to sign and get things a day or two late, all because someone had bought the other side of my street and moved all the old houses away and built McMansions, and most of the construction workers were of Mexican descent. He hinted to me several times that he didn't trust anything on a porch on this side of the street because of "those guys." The worker were hard-working family men who would not steal something from my porch. It made me so mad! I hate racism.I called a few times and was told it was the driver's perogative and they would defer to his judgment, if he felt it was not safe, he had the right. And my calling and "inquiring" didn't help.

Anyway, he finally moved to another route and I have a great UPS driver now. Thank goodness.

Out here in the Bay Area, and my guess is elsewhere as well, the current fad is for petty thieves to follow the delivery trucks and simply help themselves to whatever they leave along the route. My boss, who lives in a fairly well-to-do neighborhood in Palo Alto, lost packages three days in a row, and even lost the replacement items the shippers sent him!

Our neighborhood is okay, but this crap can happen anywhere. I just ship everything to the office, except large bulky items of lower value (e.g, some of the large grocery items we get through Amazon, or the composter, etc.). And with vendors like Decware who charge actual shipping, I get slightly lower rates to the office, and I think the drivers on the commercial routes seem better, in part perhaps because they have a routine face-to-face relationship with their recipient staff.

Well this was happening a few years ago in my case, and I don't have that kind of town or area. . . I'm blessed that there have been no thefts from porches or yards or houses in this neighborhood all the twenty-three years or so I've lived in this neighborhood.

The point was the driver wouldn't leave the packages because "there were Mexicans across the street." I found that very offensive then and still do! And I had to keep my wife from tearing into him verbally twice. She was less restrained and cautious than I in some manners!

Lon, Can you explain the Perfect Wave transport to me? From what I read in a Audio Advisor catalog, you more or less rip the CD into it's memory? What advantages does it have over a computer - DAC combo? I'm just trying to wrap my little mind around it. Sort of like the $2150 Bryston Music Streamer that doesn't seem to do anything that my little $650 laptop can't do. I need to stop looking at catalogs.

Bottom line: I don't know there's probably not much that it does that your laptop "combo" doesn't. I have ZERO desire in having a laptop in my musical system. Laptops are for something else for me. I know they're perfect for many, but I don't dig using them in a music system. I love my cds, I have tons of them (possibly even LITERALLY) and I wanted to buy something that really made them shine and that I could also incorporate my video system into. This combo seems to do that very well, at least so far.

The thing that this combo does that your set up doesn't is allow the use of an I2S connection. This apparently means that the data doesn't have to undergo a splitting and recombining. It seems to me that this makes a difference. For Redbook I've tried coupling the transport via coaxial, glass toslilnk, and I2S via HDMI, and the latter clearly sounds a bit better, more 'ease" and naturalness to the sound. Also I don't know if you can do this with your system, but the "Native" feature means that this can be a Non-oversampling DAC, or there are five over-sampling choices to use. I really so far think the non-oversampling is possibly my favorite in all three sources I'm using. There are also five different digital filters to choose from, including apodizing filters that are the latest big deals, used in the top dollar Meridian processors that seem to be a big rage. There doesn't really seem to be a huge difference so far between these but it's fun to play around with.

There's the RAM that stores a few minutes of the disc (very quickly) and helps it to become an error-free version of the disc the way EAC etc. does in your laptop. And there's a Digital Lens built into the transport as well. I remember Randy the forum demigod couldn't do without his Digital Lens for the longest time, it's a very interesting component.

So far it seems a very promising pair of components. There's a lot of breakin that has to go on between the compnents and the cabling that came with it (excellent cables!) but so far it seems to be a great sounding and versatile combo that's fun to play with and suits my needs admirably. I have to say that it made me realize one thing categorically: my Sony SCD-XA5400ES and the ZCAC-1 are VERY GOOD, GIANT-KILLING components. This combo is clearly better, but it's not an earth-shattering difference, not right now at least and in my experience most components don't change radically in break in. But I'm happy so far. The fit and finish, which I really appreciate more and more as time goes by, is excellent. There's a flexibility that seems to mean I can tailor the sound a bit more consistently than tube-rolling and so far many different types of recordings sound really good. I spent a lot of money, but I wanted to get something that will make me feel really proud and which I can use for many purposes and have fun with. So far I think I selected well.

Lon, I beat you to your response and Googled up way more information than I could of asked for. I see what you are talking about, lots of flexability and precision built into the system. I also have quite a few CD's, vinyl and hell there is a big pile of lazer discs still around here. I just got tired of the "ritual" of handling media all of the time. By the time I got a album cleaned and the turntable set up I had forgotten why I wanted to play the stupid thing. I hate to admit it, but anymore 99% of my listening is out of my Ipod/Wadia setup. Until I get my ZDAC back, pickin's are pretty slim around here. Your PS stuff sounds really cool though, a little rich for my blood right now, but sometimes the money gods smile on me. You never know.........